ANNOUNCEMENT 08/09: Bill C. Merrell has been selected as New York State
Leader as well as District Leader
for New York Congressional District 2 for
www.pickensplan.com Energy efficiency, reduction of foreign energy
dependence, alternative energy strategies and energy conservation are goals of
the plan. To join, I would be pleased to invite you into the Energy Army at
www.pickensplan.com Once you are
a member, link with me, and I will keep you up-to-date. As a New York State
leader, I am eager to work with the thousands of Pickens Volunteers throughout
New York State.

~ JOIN THE ENERGY INSPECTION
NETWORK ~ If you perform Energy Inspection on Residential Homes, you may wish
the Residential Energy Assessor Designation, and Educational Designation created
by the Merrell Institute, for Tested, Educated Inspectors who are actively
performing Residential Energy Assessments. For More Information, click on the
link below!

Consider this as a new way to make money in this economy- read all
about the program and Sign Up Today! We teach you what you need to
perform Energy Inspections

This course is approved for
Professional Development by the Housing Inspection Foundation,
Environmental Assessment Association and Association of Construction
Inspectors. Those who complete this program will receive their first
year membership to North American Association Network and REA
designation FREE. A $ 150 Value

Who Should Attend this course?

Contractors, Home
Inspectors and Appraisers and those with a working knowledge of
homes

What Will We Cover?

This program
involves both theory and practical hands-on training. We will cover
each aspect of Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Environmental
Considerations for a residential home. We will show you how to
complete an Energy Inspection for the benefit of Homeowners and
Home-buyers. Many homeowners can save thousands of dollars in energy
bills over 5 years by implementing your written report
recommendations. We include the manuals you need to develop a
detailed understanding of the process and create the Reports
themselves for your use as a graduate! You also perform a Mock
Energy Inspection for us to evaluate once you graduate our school.
There is also a Comprehensive Exam at course conclusion for REA
Designation.

Weatherization and Energy Efficiency
Course Program is Ahead of it's time!

The green movement is making a prevalent
impact nationwide on the way corporations,
government and local communities conduct
daily activities. But there's another
segment of the population whose interest in
‘going green' could create an estimated
87,000 new jobs in the clean energy
economy (source: U.S. Department of
Energy). We're talking about homeowners.

Nationwide, homeowners are more educated
than ever before about the advantages of
being energy conscious. As a result, they
are pursuing ways to save money on rising
energy costs by weather-proofing their homes
– which can reduce heating bills by
32% and overall energy bills by about $350
per year at current prices (U.S.
Department of Energy).

And there's more good news - under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
of 2009, about $8 billion has been invested
into state and local weatherization and
energy efficiency programs. This means the
Department of Energy will partner with state
and local governments to put thousands of
Americans to work and save families hundreds
of dollars per year on their energy bills
(DOE). We are not offering job placement,
however based upon state and federal
documentation, there is a need for high
quality, energy efficiency inspectors, who
are environmentally compliant.

Prepare to join the growing clean energy
workforce with our Weatherization and Energy
Efficiency Program. Upon successful
completion of this course, you can
take REA (Residential Energy Assessment
Designating) certification exam
with confidence and launch a new career in
an industry that needs trained workers –
and that can be you.

Affiliations and Designations:

Upon completion of
this program, you will be eligible for the designation of R.E.A.
Designation (Residential Energy Assessor) free, and membership to
the Environmental Assessment Association and the Housing Inspection
Foundation. 1st Year Membership reduced from $ 215.00 to $ 59.00.

"Save Money,
Save Energy, Save The Earth, One Home at a time"

AS OUR GRADUATE, YOU ARE ELIGIBLE TO JOIN THE ENERGY INSPECTION
NETWORK “Free”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~ JOIN THE ENERGY INSPECTION
NETWORK ~ If you perform Energy Inspection on Residential Homes, you may wish
the Residential Energy Assessor Designation, and Educational Designation created
by the Merrell Institute, for Tested, Educated Inspectors who are actively
performing Residential Energy Assessments.

To Apply to the ENERGY
INSPECTION NETWORK, fill out the form below and snail mail it to our facilities
with all documents requested. We will e-mail you a PDF exam, which you are to
complete and snail mail back to us. Once we have received the original
documentation and the completed Examination, The Residential Energy Assessor
Board will contact you and finalize your application and, if determined
qualified, you will be permitted use of the REA Designation, Residential Energy
Assessor Designation.

EXTRA EYES Brigid Butler of Baltimore watches as
Atticus Doman of TerraLogos Green Home Services checks for air leaks
in her house. At right, he uses a fan to check the tightness of a
doorway.

By ROY FURCHGOTT
Published: September 23, 2008

Mr. Kravitz, an engineer at the J
Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md., had conducted his own
assessment and concluded that his 41-year-old house was well sealed
but probably needed some insulation. “I was convinced I had a pretty
tight house,” he said.

That was before he hired an energy
auditor who used infrared images produced by a thermographic camera
to find temperature differences in walls and ceilings. “It wasn’t
the insulation,” he said. “There were holes.” Air was pouring into
the house from unseen gaps in the walls of the attic, basement and
kitchen.

The rising cost of energy, a drop in
the cost of thermographic cameras and demand from homeowners like Mr.
Kravitz have created a new market for energy auditors, a group that once
focused exclusively on helping managers of large industrial buildings
cut energy and maintenance costs.

But while the residential energy
assessment business has taken off recently, questions remain about
whether the business will be sustainable. “We are doing really well,”
said Peter Van Buren, president of TerraLogos Green Home Services, a
residential energy auditor and green builder in Baltimore that conducted
the audit of Mr. Kravitz’s house. The company, which charges $495 for an
audit, did 150 inspections in 2007 and expects to do twice that many
this year, Mr. Van Buren said.

Energy assessment is particularly
appealing to homeowners who want to lower their bills and help the
environment at the same time. According to the United States Green
Building Council, buildings account for 40 percent of the nation’s
energy consumption, with half of that from housing.

Although large corporations have long
used energy auditors, their services have become affordable enough for
the residential market in the past few years as equipment prices have
fallen.

“The cameras that were once $25,000 are
now $3,000,” said Tom Scanlon, a vice president of the thermography
division of FLIR Systems, a company in Portland, Ore., that makes
infrared cameras. He said that sales of thermal cameras for use in home
audits had gone from zero to about 10 percent of the total in the last
18 months.

The cameras are similar to digital
cameras in that they have a sensor chip that captures an image and
displays it on an L.C.D. screen. But instead of capturing visible light,
the thermographic sensors detect light on the infrared wavelength,
measuring relative temperature differences. Cold shows as dark blue or
purple, and heat as orange, yellow or white. The images can reveal a
number of problems — not only leaks, but water damage behind walls,
resistance in electrical wiring and the presence of insects or rodents.

Often the results are surprising.

“We go into big McMansions with the
two-story atriums, and find out they are only insulated up to seven
feet,” said Nick Gromicko, founder of the International Association of
Certified Home Inspectors. “That’s a problem, because all of the heat is
at the top.”

The price drop in thermal imaging
cameras has proved a boon to home inspectors. “It’s the first tool we
have brought in that the consumer has clamored for,” Mr. Gromicko said.
The inspectors group, which used to charge members $3,000 for training
to become certified in the use of the cameras, now offers the service
free to members. He predicts that the technology will become
commonplace.

Many energy auditing companies not only
conduct assessments but also provide detailed recommendations, as well
as lists of approved contractors who can do what is sometimes
specialized work.

The main value for Mr. Kravitz was that
the audit guided him to “do things in the right order” to correct the
problems in his house, he said. First was sealing air leaks that the
thermal camera discovered in the roof, basement and kitchen. Next was
sealing ducts, which were leaking air into walls and ceilings. “Those
two things made a huge impact on the comfort of the house,” he said.
Finally, he replaced the heating and air-conditioning system with a
smaller, more efficient model. “My electric bill for August was half
what it was last year, and a third of the year before that,” he said.

But consumers should choose a service
carefully, experts say.

“If you are not trained and familiar
with home inspections, you can make some very serious mistakes,” said
Jim Seffrin, director of the Infraspection Institute, a company in
Burlington, N.J., specializing in infrared training and certification.
His company charges home and building inspectors $995 for a basic course
in thermography. He said that untrained thermographers could misread
shadows as water leaks, leading to expensive and unnecessary repairs.

At the moment, perhaps the biggest
hurdle is getting the word out about residential energy assessments.
Mr. Kravitz found TerraLogos only after he approached a heating and
air-conditioning company about a new unit. He was told that he was
“starting at the wrong place, that I should get an energy audit, and
I didn’t know that such things existed,” he said.